…just because you can!

After the hike to the Torres we rather spent a quiet day around the hostel and the town for shopping, chatting and planning. Axel and I agreed on not doing the rest of the W with an overnight stay in a tent as we found the trek a bit overrated. With Axel also having this open blister on his leg, he wouldn’t enjoy strenuous hikes the next days anyway.

For some apparently dumb reason, I still insisted on doing the Lago Grey day hike, probably mainly because Omar said, it would be impossible to walk to the Refugio and back within the best-case six hours between the ferries. According to the information supplied by the park authorities, it was a seven hours return hike.

Axel instead went on a bus and boat based day tour for the “injured and elderly” how he called it. Unfortunatly, no young, injured girl was in his group, but mainly, uhm, the elderly. That trip to some other glaciers (Higgins?) including Asado for a cost of 70.000 CLP, while I paid 41.000 CLP just for the bus and the catamaran to my trailhead. Bad deal.

My bus was late and if I hadn’t skipped a bus at the park gate and smuggled myself onto the next in front, I wouldn’t have been at the port for the catamaran in time. Unfortunately for me (but good for the others), the deparature of the catamaran was delayed 20 minutes for that reason. So I arrived at the Lago Pehoe trail head at 12:50 and the ferry back was supposed to leave at 18:30 again. Also, I needed not to be the last in line, as sometimes the ferry was full and they made people stay for another night.

So I ran.

The landscape became a blur while I was fighting the strong winds whipping my face. I did win in the end but it was like walking up a steep hill. Also, the path wasn’t as flat as I expected it to be. It was more a constant up-and-down but that made it easier to assume symmetric times for both direction.

This part of the national park had been severly destroyed by the fire and you could only imagine how beautiful it must have been before last year. The most rewarding part was reaching Lago Grey, where the Grey glacier dropped into its own blue-grey-cyan melting water. The few icebergs floating in the water appeared in their magic deep blue shine, telling stories from decades ago. And also telling that, however you want to call it, will make these glaciers disappear in intermediate time.

After the mirador with the best view over the Lago Grey and its glacier I passed down into lush forest, passing by rivers and waterfalls that roared even from far away. Two and a half hours after I left the ferry, I arrived at the Refugio. Unfortunately, there was no better view of the end of the glacier and I didn’t have to look for one. A five minutes break later, I packed up and headed back, not knowing if the three hours I now had for my return would be enough, as I had spent a LOT of energy running and sprinting to get there.

Past the forest, up to the look-out, I almost never stopped for photos. I ran past the people I had overtaken before, who were now looking at me in disbelief. I kept going and just 4.75h and 22km  after my arrival, I was back at the ferry dock. One hour early. If I had known, I would had spent more time for exploring and photos. If I had know that the ferry was late by 35 minutes, well…

50 EUR for a whole day of fun, huh? I could have gone for that Asado instead. But then that wouldn’t have been me.

I only arrived back in the hostel at around 23:30 as our bus back had a flat tire and it took the bus driver about an hour to fix it. I was hungry, exhausted and sore. The kitchen was already closed, but at least I could bend the rule for no showers after 23:30 a little. Then I ate some of the salami that I forgot to take with me that morning while listening to the stories of Alex and Max.

Tomorrow we would leave Chile behind and head to El Calafate for some more glaciers and hikes. And that awesome Kaweskar hostel with Claudia and Omar. Great four days.

But at least I showed Omar that some things indeed are within range that seem impossible at first glance.